This invention relates to an improved walking mechanism for use in a children's doll.
There are a number of prior art mechanisms for simulating walking movement of a doll's legs. Generally these mechanisms employ a reciprocating arm mounted on a vertical axis and adapted to engage the flange portions of a doll's leg. Such mechanisms suffer several disadvantages. Most of these mechanisms have notches, stops or the like on the leg flanges which permit only a limited amount of backward movement of the leg. The mechanism may easily be broken by attempting to move a leg backward past its normal walking swing. Also, while these mechanisms generally restrict the forward movement of the legs past a normal sitting position, no means is provided for locking the legs into such a sitting position. Furthermore, mechanisms have generally been developed which arrange such an arm to engage the flanges either from above or from behind, thus making the arrangement large physically or complicated mechanically. Adding to the complexity of existing mechanisms is the necessity for providing separate limit stops for cooperation with the limit arms used to limit the back-and-forth walking motion of the legs. Many walking simulating mechanisms of the prior art require relatively close tolerances and are difficult to assemble.